The community tool box
The Community Tool Box is a website created by the University of Kansas’ Work Group for Community Health and Development, a research group that has been investigating ways to improve health through community action for more than 35 years.
The website states that it is the “world’s largest resource” for information about community health and development, with more than 7,000 pages of step-by-step guidance.
Resources are organized into four categories. The how-to-guidance page lists 46 ‘chapters’ of guidance in community-building skills. The toolkits page lists resources to guide you through assessing your community’s needs through to evaluating your strategies and outcomes. The troubleshooting resources help readers work through common problems, such as those related to leadership, conflict, and unintended outcomes. The evidence-based practice page links to external databases — both comprehensive and category-based — of promising practices for promoting community health and development. These include the Cochrane Collaboration and the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Canadian Best Practices Portal for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention.
Online opportunities to connect with others, including experts and experienced community members, are also available.
For more information about the University of Kansas Work Group for Community Health and Development visit http://www.communityhealth.ku.edu.
Use this resource to
- Find step-by-step guidance to improve your community’s well-being through capacity building and health promotion
- Overcome obstacles in your own community engagement initiatives using topic-specific trouble-shooting guides
- Build your networks by connecting with experts and colleagues engaged in community mobilization and health promotion
University of Kansas’ Work Group for Community Health and Development. (1994). The Community Toolbox: Bringing solutions to light. Retrieved from: ctb.ku.edu/en/default.aspx.
Tags: Community engagement, Evaluation, Methods & tools, Assess and report, Modify and orient interventions, Tool